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A Meaner, More Callous Digital World for Youth? The
Relationship Between Violent Digital Games, Motivation, Bullying
and Civic Behavior amongst Children
Ferguson, C.J. and Colwell, J.
This is an author's accepted manuscript of an article published in the Psychology of
Popular Media Culture, Jul 18 , 2016, doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000128
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
A Meaner, More Callous Digital World for Youth? The Relationship Between Violent
Digital Games, Motivation, Bullying and Civic Behavior amongst Children
Christopher J. Ferguson
Stetson University
John Colwell
University of Westminster
Send Correspondence to: Christopher J. Ferguson, Department of Psychology, Stetson
University, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., DeLand, FL 32729. E-mail: [email protected]
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Abstract
The relationship between violent digital games and youth behavior remains contested in the
scholarly literature. To date considerable scholarship has focused on university students with
fewer studies of adolescents or children. The current study examines correlational relationships
between violent game exposure and bullying behaviors, antisocial attitudes, civic attitudes and
civic behaviors in a sample of 304 children from the United Kingdom (Mean age = 12.81). The
paper also considered motivational influences on use of violent digital games. Results indicated
that violent game exposure did not correlate meaningfully with either antisocial or civic
behaviors or attitudes. These results are discussed in a motivational and developmental context.
Key words: Video games; Violence; Bullying; Civic Behavior; Motivation
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Introduction
The relationship between violent digital games and the well-being of children and
adolescents has been debated hotly in the academic literature (e.g. Bushman & Huesmann, 2014;
Kutner & Olson, 2008; Sherry, 2007; Williams, 2013). To date little consensus has emerged
among scholars regarding the impact of digital games (Quandr et al., in press). Professional
groups such as the American Psychological Association (APA, 2015)1 have released policy
statements claiming that violent games can be harmful to children, yet recently a group of 230
scholars wrote an open letter to the APA asking them to retire these policy statements due to
inconsistencies in the literature (Consortium of Scholars, 2013). To date, a considerable portion
of the literature has been conducted on university student samples (e.g. Greitemeyer, TrautMattausch, & Osswald, 2012; Tear & Nielson, 2013; Velez & Ewoldsen, 2013), and the
applicability of such studies to public health issues influencing children or the general population
has been questioned (Kutner & Olson, 2008) including by the Supreme Court of the United
States (Brown v EMA, 2011) and the government of Australia (Australian Government, Attorney
General’s Department, 2010). Considerable debate continues among scholars as well (e.g. the
recent special section on video games and children in Perspectives on Psychological Science,
Ferguson, 2015a; 2015b; Boxer et al., 2015; Gentile, 2015 Markey, 2015; Rothstein & Bushman,
2015; Valkenburg, 2015) The current paper attempts to address questions regarding the
relationship between violent digital games and children’s attitudes and behavior.
Violent Video Game Research
As noted above, a large number of studies, particularly experimental studies, of video
game influences have been conducted with college students, but comparatively fewer with
adolescents or children. Those studies that have been conducted with youth are often
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
correlational or longitudinal studies, and results have been mixed. Perhaps the largest such study
was a national study from the United Kingdom (Parkes, Sweeting, Wight, & Henderson, 2013)
which found that the relationship between digital game use and children’s mental health
including externalizing behavior disorders was minimal.
Longitudinal studies have generally been mixed. Some early studies (e.g. Hopf, W. H.,
Huber, G. L., & Weiß, 2008; Möller, I., & Krahé, 2009) suggested that violent game use
demonstrated small to moderate correlations with later adolescent aggression, although such
studies did not always control well for other important variables. Meta-analyses of these early
studies sometimes suggested that video games could influence aggressive behavior (e.g.
Anderson et al, 2010) although not all meta-analyses agreed (e.g. Sherry, 2001). These early
studies were subsequently improved upon with better designed studies controlling for
personality, family environment and socioeconomic status (e.g. Hull, Brunelle, Prescott &
Sargent, in press; Willoughby, Adachi & Good, 2012) although such studies did not always use
well-validated and standardized measures of clinical aggression. However, such studies
suggested that violent digital games had a statistically significant but very small relationship with
subsequent aggression, typically less than half a percentage variance overlap (r values of
approximately .06-.07 with other factors controlled, see Ferguson, 2015a). One of these
longitudinal studies was subsequently reanalyzed to suggest that competitive content, rather than
violent content may influence later aggression (Adachi & Willoughby, 2013). Other longitudinal
studies have suggested that violent digital games have no discernible relationship with
subsequent adolescent aggression (Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, 2015; Ferguson, 2011;
Ferguson, San Miguel, Garza, & Jerabeck, 2012; von Salisch et al., 2011). Some studies suggest
that youth who are more aggressive may be inclined to play more violent video games (e.g.
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Breuer et al., 2015; von Salisch, et al., 2015) but that there is no inverse effect of violent video
games increasing aggression. Thus, evidence linking digital games to subsequent aggression has
been mixed suggesting either negligible effect to small effects at most.
Bullying and Civic Behaviors
Most prior research on violent video games and aggression have focused on relatively
mild and esoteric aggressive acts in the laboratory (giving hot sauce, cold ice water or bursts of
noise to another) or surveys of hypothetical aggressiveness (e.g. “If someone bumped into me, I
would shove them back.”) Relatively few have examined bullying behaviors specifically. As
with most aggressive acts among youth, bullying behaviors have been declining in recent years
(Finkelhor et al., 2010) yet this issue remains one of great importance.
Of the few studies to examine bullying, results have been mixed. Several studies have
indicated a general lack of relationship (Ferguson et al, 2012) or small effects for girls but not
boys (Olson et al. 2009.) One further study did find clearer evidence for correlations (Dittrick,
Beran, Mishna, Hetherington, & Shariff, 2013). It is worth considering that, at times, the
scholarly community may appear overeager to link bullying to violent media. For instance on
recent study (Coyne, 2016), used relaxed standards of evidence (i.e. greater than p = .05) in some
analyses to claim links between television violence and aggression, despite overall trivial effect
sizes (β values between .02 and .06.) This points to the need both for more rigorous evaluations
and a greater familiarity and respect for the concept of the trivial in academic psychology. Thus
further evidence would be welcome.
Much less research has examined the relationship between digital games and prosocial or
civic behavior among youth. Again, much of what has been done has focused on college
students (e.g. Greitemeyer et al., 2012) although this research has not always replicated (Tear &
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Nielson, 2013). As with the aggression realm, some early research suggested links between
digital game violence and decreased prosocial attitudes (Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, &
Baumgardner, 2004) although the applicability of this work, typically involving the completion
of fictional stories by youth, to real world empathy or prosocial behavior remained unclear.
Later scholarship suggested that digital game use in general (Lenhart et al., 2008) or violent
game use specifically (Ferguson & Garza, 2011; Granic et al., 2014) might be associated with
increased prosocial attitudes and behaviors, or that video games could have both positive and
negative influences in different realms (Williams, 2006). This may be because violent content
may not be the most salient aspect of behavioral influence (Adachi & Willoughby, 2011) and
other factors such as cooperativeness (Velez & Ewoldsen, 2013) or goal frustration (Przybylski,
Deci, Rigby, & Ryan. 2014) may be more crucial for the influence of behavior. Other research
suggests that the way in which youth play video games has more influence on issues related to
desensitization than does violent content (Ballard et al., 2012). Specifically, playing
competitively appears to often increase aggression, whereas playing cooperatively appears too
often reduced aggression.
Much of this research does focus specifically on prosocial or helping behaviors as
opposed to civic behaviors, which could be defined as involvement in the community. However,
Ferguson and Garza (2011) did note that playing violent games with parents was associated with
small increases in both prosocial and civic behaviors. Other studies have indicated that the social
platform of online gaming could be associated with increased civic awareness (Williams, 2006)
and that social bonding in games can increase civic involvement (Molyneux, L., Vasudevan, K.,
& de Zúñiga. 2015.)
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
In some research, parental involvement appears to be a crucial variable, with positive
parental involvement eliminating any effects from violent video game play (e.g. Ferguson &
Garza, 2011; Wallenius & Punamaki, 2008). Thus, controlling for parental influences may be
crucial in video game research examining prosocial or civic outcomes.
Taken together, it is difficult to make firm conclusions regarding the influence of violent
digital games on children’s behavior. In the following section, we discuss some theoretical
reasons for why this may be.
The Forgotten Role of Development and Motivation in Media Effects
Media scholars have often postulated digital game effects consistent with “hypodermic
needle” approaches (see Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955) in that no consumers are “immune” to the
effects of violent digital games (e.g. Anderson, Bushman, Donnerstein, Hummer & Warburton,
2014) or that the effects should be similar to exposure to violence in one’s family or real life
(Bushman & Huesmann, 2014). Advocates of this position suggest that aggression is due to
cognitive scripts learned from watching others and that media violence does not differ from real
life violence in this respect. However this assumption of equivalence between real-life and
fictional violence is a significant assumption. Such an approach may both have a “common
sense” appeal to some and also fit in well with political and social narratives regarding the
“culture war” of objectionable media content (e.g. Boleik, 2012). However, other scholars have
commented on the disconnect between the research focusing on college students and its
subsequent application to youth (Kutner & Olson, 2008), the intrusion of politics and ideology
into the field (Quintero-Johnson, Banks, Bowman, Carveth, & Lachlan, 2014) the lack of a
developmental focus (Kirsh, 2003) or the absence of a motivational focus (Oswald, Prorock, &
Murphy, 2014; Przybylski, Weinstein, Murayama, Lynch, & Ryan, 2012).
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
In some previous research with children with preexisting mental health problems,
scholars have advocated combining developmental and motivational theoretical models
(Ferguson & Olson, 2014). For instance, it has been noted that exposure to media violence is
developmentally normative (Olson, 2010; Savage, 2004) rather than aberrant and that the effects
of media may be too distal to have direct impact on consumers. Further, effect sizes for samples
of children and adolescents demonstrate lower effects than for college students (Sherry, 2001).
Scholars have also suggested that the media experience is not a passive one and that it is
important to understand the developmental and motivational processes that underlie media use
(Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, & Holmstrom, 2013, Przybylski et al., 2010). For instance, children
use digital games to meet needs, including social, autonomy or competence needs that go unmet
in real life (Colwell, 2007). Further, research indicates that motivational issues and expected
gratifications help to drive video game genre selections, once again suggesting that exposure is
selective (Scharkow, Festl, Vogelgesang & Quandt, 2015). Other research suggests that social
context can influence game selection and motivation (de Grove & van Looy, 2015). Thus,
understanding the digital game experience from an active user perspective, rather than a
hypodermic needle perspective may be more illustrative to our understanding of digital game
effects.
In contrast to previous approaches to media exposure, which have tended to assume an
imitative cause/effect relationship, the current paper employs the Catalyst Model (e.g. Ferguson
& Beaver, 2009). The Catalyst Model is an evolutionary approach to understanding antisocial
behavior, which characterizes such behavior as resulting from genetic predisposition combined
with early exposure to proximal violence such as violence in the family. By contrast the Catalyst
Model views media exposure as too distal to have significant impact on antisocial behavior (see
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
also Kennedy & Ceballo, 2014 regarding the need to distinguish between community and media
violence exposure). From this perspective, small correlations might be expected between violent
media exposure and antisocial behavior, but these are likely to be dispositional in nature, and are
likely to approach zero once critical control variables related to gender, genetics, family violence
exposure, mental health and personality are controlled (see Breuer, Vogelgesang et al., 2015).
The Catalyst Model arguably has some benefits over traditional hypodermic needle
models of aggression. For example, the Catalyst Model suggests that human brains engage in
deeper processing of the meaning and impact of violence exposure allowing for distinctions in
the impact of fictional versus real-life violence. In this sense, the Catalyst Model is consistent
both with evidence regarding the development of reality testing in children (Woolley & van
Reet, 2006) as well as neuroscience evidence that brains actively suppress emotional reactions to
fictional media (Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, 2006; see also BBC, 2015 for updated discussion
of this study2), suggesting that human brains process this exposure differently from that of reallife violence. The Catalyst Model, via discussions of stylistic catalysts, also allows for
distinctions regarding how criminals may learn small, pragmatic or stylistic tasks from media to
enhance crime, without media influencing the motivation to commit crime in the first place
(Surette, 2013; Surette & Maze, 2015). In this sense, the Catalyst Model allows for a more
subtle, careful examination of media effects without the temptation to compare such effects to
the impact of real-life violence (e.g. Anderson, 2011; Bushman & Huesmann, 2014; Saleem &
Anderson, 2012.)
The current study aims to improve on previous research by examining violent digital
game use in a sample of children from the United Kingdom from a motivational perspective. In
the current study we seek to examine not only the relationship between violent digital games and
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
antisocial and civic attitudes and behaviors, but also the motivational structure which predicts
violent game use. We test the following hypotheses:
1) Exposure to violent games will be related to increased antisocial attitudes (H1)
2) Exposure to violent games will be related to increased bullying behavior (H2)
3) Exposure to violent games will be related to decreased civic attitudes (H3)
4) Exposure to violent games will be related to decreased civic behavior (H4)
5) Relationships between video games and antisocial/bullying and civic outcomes will
become non-significant once gender and parental involvement are controlled. H1-H4
test standard models of media effects. The fifth hypothesis (H5) is derived from the
Catalyst Model. In this sense, our hypotheses are designed to allow for a contrast
between traditional hypodermic needle models of aggression and the Catalyst Model.
6) Parental involvement will be related to decreased exposure to violent video games.
This hypothesis is predicated on the commonly expressed belief that parents are
concerned about violent video games and seek to reduce children’s exposure to them
(e.g. Bushman et al., 2015).
7) Children motivated by catharsis-seeking will be more inclined to seek out violent
digital games due to belief such games will relax them (Oswald et al., 2014).
Methods
Participants
Participants in the current study were 304 children from the United Kingdom.
Permission was given to the authors for recruitment by a school in the UK, and parents were
asked for consent for a questionnaire to be administered to students. Students who received
parental consent and who gave assent for participation in the study were surveyed in school.
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Mean age of the participants was 12.81 (SD = .45, Range = 11 to 14). Gender breakdown
demonstrate roughly equal representation of males (50.7%) and females (46.7%) with 8
respondents (2.6%) who did not report gender..
Measures
Videogame play: Respondents were asked to name their three favourite videogames and
to report on a five point scale (almost never to very often) how often they played each one. They
were also asked how many hours each week they played games in recent months. Violent
content in videogames was assessed using Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings
for each game. The six ESRB categories approximate a scale of aggressive content. The product
of category level and frequency was computed for each game, and then summed for the three
games, thus providing a measure of exposure to violent game play. This approach has been
found to be effective and valid in previous research (Kutner & Olson, 2008; Lenhart et al., 2008)
and removes some potential for demand characteristics that comes with similar surveys which
ask respondents to rate the violent content of the games they play themselves.
Parental involvement: In order to assess parental involvement in video game use, 6
items Likert-type items were included to assess this variable. Example items include ‘I play
video games with my parents’ and ‘My parents ask me about the video games I play.’ Scores on
the scales were added to produce a score for parental involvement. These items were included to
assess potential parental impact on any relationship between video game exposure and outcomes.
Coefficient alpha for this scale was .84. Parental involvement is included as a potential control
variable.
Video Game Motivation: 16 items Likert items adapted from Kutner and Olson’s (2008)
video game motivation scale were used to assess youth motivations for playing video games.
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
This scale measures four potential motivations including fun (eg ‘it’s just fun’), catharsis (eg ‘it
helps me get my anger out’), social (eg ‘it helps me make new friends’), and bored 9 (eg ‘it’s
something to do when I’m bored’). Coefficient alphas for the individual subscales ranged from
.50 (bored), .59 (social), .76 (catharsis) and .77 (fun). Thus, catharsis and fun motives have
acceptable reliability, however results for social and bored motives will need to be considered
with care due to lower reliability.
Antisocial attitudes. Participants responded to 11 four point Likert-type items from the
Negative Life Events scale subscale for aggressive personality traits and attitudes (NLE;
Paternoster & Mazerolle, 1994). Example items include ‘It’s important to be honest with your
parents even if they become upset or you get punished’ and ‘At school it is sometimes necessary
to play dirty in order to win.’ This scale has been widely used in criminological research as well
as in previous media violence research with youth samples. Coefficient alpha for the present
scale was .75. Although this variable will be examined as a dependent variable, it was primarily
included as a control variable, consistent with the Catalyst Model.
Bullying Behavior To assess bullying behaviour 7 Likert items were used to measure
bullying (Olweus, 1996). The Olweus bullying scale has been in widespread usage for decades.
A second set of 7 scales measured the extent to which the student had been bullied. Coefficient
alpha for the present sample was .82 for bullying behaviour and .80 for bullying victimization.
Civic Attitudes: To assess civic attitudes, 3 items were developed in Likert format.
These items were ‘it is important to give to charity,’ ‘it is important to help others in need’ and
‘it is important to be involved in the community. Coefficient alpha with the present sample was
.77. Although this variable will be included as a dependent variable, it will also be used as a
dispositional control variable for civic behaviour, consistent with the Catalyst Model.
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Civic Behaviour: To measure civic behaviour 3 behavioural statements adapted from
Lenhart et al., (2008) were used involving ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses covering the last 12 months.
Example items include ’I have volunteered in my community (for example: by tutoring,
mentoring, doing environmental work, working with the elderly.’ Scores on the scale were
summed to produce a score for civic behaviour.
Procedure: Students who had parental consent were asked to complete the questionnaire
in a quiet room during a form period during the normal school day. Students were kept separate
while they filled out the survey. All survey responses were anonymous. Data were analysed
using SPSS software.
Results
Descriptive Results
Use of video games was very common in the present sample. 70.3% of the sample
reported playing video games, although significant gender differences were noted, with far more
boys (93.9%) than girls (43.5%) saying that they played video games. Boys also reported far
more exposure to violent video games (M = 31.95, SD = 20.07) than did girls (M = 8.79, SD =
14.41); t(274.11) = 11.24, p < .001, r = .56 (95% CI = .48, .63).
Zero-order correlations were calculated between our four main outcome variables as well
as violent video game exposure for both the full sample and for those only who play games.
Antisocial attitudes correlated positively with bullying behaviour and negatively with civic
attitudes, but did not relate significantly to civic behaviour. However civic attitudes did correlate
significantly with civic behaviour, and negatively with bullying behaviour. Civic behaviour and
bullying behaviour were not significantly correlated. Violent game exposure only correlated
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
with antisocial attitudes and only for the full sample, not for the gamers only subsample. These
results are presented in Table 1.
[Insert Table 1 about here]
Partial correlations were also calculated between violent video game exposure and
outcome variables. These results are presented in Table 2. In no case was violent video game
exposure related to worse outcomes.
[Insert Table 2 about here]
Predicting anti-social attitudes (H1)
A OLS multiple regression analysis was conducted with independent variables gender,
age, parental involvement, and violent game play. Results are shown in Table 3 for both the
whole sample, and for video game players only. As can be seen in Table 3, gender is the only
significant predictor for antisocial attitudes, with males scoring higher than females, for the
whole sample. A similar pattern emerged for players only, but in this case the gender effect was
a strong trend. Violent video games did not predict antisocial attitudes (p = .58). Null results
were further analysed using Bayesian analyses. The regression Bayes factor calculator provided
by Rouder (2015) was used to calculate Bayes factors. With this calculator, Bayes factors can be
compared both with and without a target predictor model. Worsening Bayes factors with the
predictor inclusion indicates support for the null hypothesis. Without the video game violence
variable, the Bayes factor supported the alternative hypothesis (BF = 6.60). With the video game
violence variable included, the Bayes factor worsened significantly (BF = 1.88) indicating
support for non-inclusion of the video game violence variable in the model.
[Insert Table 3 about here]
Predicting civic attitudes (H2)
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
A OLS multiple regression analysis was conducted with independent variables gender,
age, parental involvement, and violent game play. Results are shown in Table 4 for both the
whole sample, and for players only. As with antisocial attitudes, gender was the only significant
predictor, but with this time females scored significantly higher than males for the whole sample.
For players only there were no significant predictors. Violent video games did not predict civic
attitudes (p = .84). Null results were further analysed using Bayesian analyses. Without the
video game violence variable, the Bayes factor proved to be indeterminate, weakly supporting
the null (BF = 1.18). With the video game violence variable included, the Bayes factor worsened
significantly, becoming clearly supportive of the null (BF = 4.64) indicating support for noninclusion of the video game violence variable in the model.
[Insert Table 4 about here]
Predicting bullying behaviour (H3)
A OLS multiple regression analysis was conducted with independent variables gender,
age, parental involvement, violent game play, and antisocial behaviour. Results are shown in
Table 5 for both the whole sample, and for players only. For both the whole sample and for
players only there were two significant predictors, age and antisocial attitudes. Older participants
were more like to engage in bullying behaviour as were those with higher antisocial attitudes.
The bullying measure included one item ‘hit or beat another kid’, which arguably is the clearest
measure of aggressive behaviour. The multiple regression analysis was repeated with this
measure as the DV, and a very similar result was obtained, except on this occasion antisocial
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
attitudes was the single highly significant predictor. Violent video games did not predict
bullying behaviour (p = .97). Null results were further analysed using Bayesian analyses.
Without the video game violence variable, the Bayes factor supported the alternative hypothesis
(BF = 3.55e19). With the video game violence variable included, the Bayes factor worsened
significantly (BF = 5.82e18) indicating support for non-inclusion of the video game violence
variable in the model.
[Insert Table 5 about here]
Predicting civic behaviour (H4)
An OLS multiple regression analysis was conducted with independent variables gender,
age, parental involvement, violent game play, and civic attitudes. Results are shown in Table 6
for both the whole sample, and for players only. Two significant predictors emerged for the
whole sample: higher violent game play and higher civic attitudes predicted higher civic
behaviour. A similar pattern of results was obtained for players only, but the effect did not reach
significance. Bayesian analyses conducted with all 5 predictor models warned that results were
slightly supportive of the null (BF = 2.24), however with only civic attitudes and violent games
included the Bayes factor supported the alternative (BF = 19.89).
[Insert Table 6 about here]
Parental Involvement and Violent Video Games (H6)
It is not unreasonable to speculate that youth’s exposure to violent video games may be
related to reduced parental supervision. To examine this, we ran a simple bivariate correlation
between violent game exposure and parental involvement. The resultant correlation (r = .001, p
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
= .995) was not significant. There is no correlational relationship between violent game play and
the extent to which parents are involved in such play.
Motivational Factors as Predictors of Video Game Play (H7)
It is of interest to see how the motivational factors are related to hours of play, and in
particular time spent in playing violent video games. Zero order correlations indicated that hours
of play were related to social motivations only (r = .26, p < .01). Exposure to violent video
games was related to fun (r = .45, p < .001), catharsis (r = .36, p < .001), social (r = .44, p <
.001) and bored (r = .18, p < .05) motivations. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to
ascertain which variables best predicted each type of play, and the results are shown in Table 7.
Hours of play were best represented by male gender and social motivations, whereas violent
video game exposure was related to male gender only in multivariate analyses. However, when
motivations to play violent video games were reanalysed only on those players who had
exposure to violent video games, both fun and catharsis motives emerged, alongside gender, as
motivations for exposure to violent video games.
[Insert Table 7 about here]
Discussion
Controversies regarding the role of violent video games in societal aggression and
prosocial and civic behaviour have been ongoing. The current analysis examined the correlation
between violent game use and aggression and civic attitudes and behaviour in a sample of
schoolchildren in the United Kingdom. Results indicated that violent game exposure was not
correlated with aggressive attitudes or bullying behaviour. Violent games were also not
correlated with civic attitudes but had a weak positive correlation with civic behaviours. Overall,
our results do not lend evidence to the belief that violent video games contribute to negative
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
outcomes in youth. As such, H5 was supported, but not H1-H4. Results thus support the
Catalyst Model, but not traditional hypodermic needle models of media violence exposure.
Though small in effect size, the link between violent game play and civic behaviour is
interesting, particularly given it is in the opposite direction expected. It is important to note that
this data is correlational, not causal, and thus explaining this finding is speculative by nature.
However, gaming in general is a social activity and that may be particularly true for actionoriented games. In such a context, games can be viewed as creating social cultures among youth
that, in turn, promote civic engagement. Gaming, including action-oriented violent games, thus
can provide a mechanism for secondary civic development. Or, put another way, how games are
used by youth may be more crucial than the content of those games.
Interestingly, parental involvement was unrelated to violent video game play (H6). It
would seem intuitive to suspect that greater parental involvement might lead to greater restriction
of content, but this does not seem to be the case. There may be several explanations for this.
Consistent with our observations in the current study, parents may not be seeing behavioural
impacts for their children when playing more violent video games and, thus, may not always see
a benefit in being restrictive. Or parents may be using involvement and co-playing as an
opportunity to discuss more controversial content. Finally, as parents become accustomed to
playing violent games themselves, they may see them as less threatening (Ivory, &
Kalyanaraman, 2009). Further, as younger parents are more likely to be gamers themselves, they
may see games, including more violent ones, as a normal part of the social culture (Przybylski,
2014). This may lead such parents both to be more involved in gaming with their kids but also
less worried about restricting violent games. The general public appears to be increasingly
skeptical of video game effects (Przybylski, 2014; Pew Research Center, 2015) with slight
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
minorities of individuals disagreeing that violent games lead to societal problems, and younger
adults more skeptical than older adults. This may indicate that concerns about violent video
games are decreasing as a priority for modern parents.
Regarding exposure to video games, being motivated to use video games socially
predicted greater exposure to video games in general. However, although a variety of motives
including fun, social, catharsis and bored motivations, predicted violent game use in bivariate
analyses, only male gender predicted violent game use in multivariate analyses. This changed,
though, when only children who had exposure to violent video games were considered. Among
such children, both fun and catharsis motivations were predictors of violent game exposure.
These results suggest kids may seek out such games both as entertainment, but also for the
perception that they may reduce stress, thus supporting H7. This suggests one interesting line of
future research may come in examining different motivational structures present in male and
female gamers, and how male and female gamers may be motivated by different types of games.
Further, it is not yet clear how effective video games, including violent games are in reducing
stress. It would be beneficial for future research to consider this question.
Thus, youth seem to endorse beliefs that games can be useful in achieving needs not
always met in real life, a finding consistent with Self-Determination Theory (Przybylski et al.,
2010). Youth, and boys in particular may view violent, action oriented games as a platform to
both enjoy themselves and reduce stress. However, it’s important to note that it would be
simplistic to conclude that youth are merely attracted to violence. Motivations for use of video
games appear to be complex, with people more inclined to play games that help meet their
motivational needs rather than simply consuming violent content for its own sake (Ryan, Rigby,
& Przybylski, 2006.) Or, put another way, there are plenty of violent games that are terrible,
20
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
plenty of non-violent games that are great and players are not simply mindlessly drawn to violent
content any more than they are mindlessly influenced by it.
Contrasting Fictional with Real-Life Violence
As noted earlier in the manuscript, one assumption of hypodermic needle models of
media effects is that the human brain does not distinguish between fictional and real life
violence. This appears to be a long-standing assumption and references to this idea that viewers
of fictional violence should model witnessed behaviors in media no different than with real-life
exposure to violence has roots as far back as the 1972 Surgeon General’s report on television
violence stating at the time “We know that children imitate and learn from everything they see,
see-parents, fellow children, schools, the media; it would be extraordinary, indeed, if they did not
imitate and learn from what they see on television.” Such views have been repeated through the
present day with claims that media exposure to violence and exposure to real life should be
equivalent in effects (Bushman & Huesmann, 2014) or present charts claiming that media
violence has more impact than does child abuse or broken homes (Saleem & Anderson, 2012) as
well as abusive parenting, substance abuse and poverty (Anderson, 2011).
We suggest that the time has come to seriously reevaluate these assumptions. We believe
that research evidence has become increasingly clear that human brains do not process fictional
media in the same way as real-life events and that the human mind goes through a kind of
“fiction detection” process. That children begin a process of reality testing development as early
as age 3 has been understood for some time (Woolley & van Reet, 2006) and it is remarkable
that this developmental literature has been ignored by media psychology for so long. Further,
evidence from some brain imaging studies suggests that brains are able to suppress emotional
responses to fictional stimuli (Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, 2006 and see BBC, 2015 for further
21
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
discussion of these results) indicating that detecting stimuli as fictional reduces our response to
them.
With this in mind, the “one size fits all” perspective on learning expressed in the 1972
Surgeon General’s report appears to be naïve. Evidence for the view that humans learn from
virtual violence in the same way they do from their immediate environment is lacking. Further
there are clear theoretical reasons to be skeptical of such claims. The Catalyst Model notes that
development is most likely to be influenced by proximal social forces, particularly those able to
interact epigenetically with biological predispositions. This is likely to require real-life exposure
to social others, primarily parents, peers and those others able to cause direct impact on the
child’s social world. Fictional media, by contrast, is simply too distal to have this sort of impact.
Further, as noted, developmental research indicates that children quickly begin to develop fiction
detectors and these observations need to be better incorporated into media psychology. Put
simply, media psychology too often operates under the assumption that humans work like robots,
having no motivation or agentic function other than to unquestionably and, without fail, mimic
whatever they see. This perspective is an increasingly unpersuasive and unsatisfying one.
We find that, in conjunction with other evidence (e.g. Breuer et al., 2015; Devilly,
Callahan, & Armitage, 2012) that it may be time to move beyond content based theories of
media effects. By contrast, it may be more crucial to understand both how people play (e.g.
Adachi, Hodson, Willoughby, & Zanette, 2014) and why they play (Przybylski et al., 2012).
Continuing focus on content may have appeal as a morally valenced issue, but it remains unclear
that such an approach has been particularly effective if our goal is to understand the complexities
in the interaction between video games and youth.
22
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
As with all studies, the current study has limitations. The study is correlational and
causal inferences cannot be drawn from the data presented. Further, the study is based on
adolescent self-report, wherein data from other respondents would be desirable. Nonetheless, the
study does avoid some pitfalls common in other research, such as asking participants to
themselves rate the content of the video games they play which can introduce demand
characteristics.
The issue of potential impact of violent video games on youth behavior remains a
controversial one. The current study adds to evidence that violent video games may have only
minimal relationship with adolescent behavior. We hope that the current study will add
positively to the ongoing debate on violent video game effects.
23
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
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Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 1: Zero order correlations between antisocial attitudes, civic attitudes, bullying, civic
action, and violent video games (VVG). Players only are shown in brackets.
Bullying
Civic
Civic
Attitudes
Action
VVG
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Antisocial Attitudes
.59**(.63**) -.26**(-.29**) -.07(-.07)
Bullying
-.29**(.35**)
Civic Attitudes
Civic Action
-.08(-.09)
.15*(.08)
.10(.04)
-.20**(.18*) -.09(-.09)
.09(.12)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*p<.05
** p< .001 (2 tailed)
34
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 2: Partial correlations between violent video games (VVG), with outcomes related to
antisocial attitudes, civic attitudes, bullying, and civic behaviour, controlling for gender.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Antisocial
Civic
Attitudes
Attitudes
Bullying
Civic
Action
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------VVG
whole sample
.05
.02
- .02
.17**
players
.01
- .03
- .05
.18*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*p< .05 **p< .01 ***p<.001
35
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 3 Multiple regression summary table with gender, age, parental involvement, and violent
games play as predictor variables and antisocial attitudes as criterion variable
Whole Sample
Players
predictor
beta
t
gender
-.19
age
sig
beta
t
-2.90 .004
-.14
-1.83 .07
.04
-.66
n.s.
.01
.13
par/involve
-.03
- .57 n.s.
.03
-.38 n.s.
viol/games
.04
.55
.09
1.01 n.s.
n.s.
R = .22 R2 = .04
________________________________________
sig
n.s.
R = .19 R2 = .01
36
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 4: Multiple regression summary table with gender, age, parental involvement, and violent
games play as predictor variables and civic attitudes as criterion variable.
Whole Sample
Players
predictor
beta
t
sig
beta
t
sig
gender
.18
2.65
.008
.13
1.62
n.s.
age
.03
.55
n.s.
-.01
- .10 n.s.
par/involve
.06
1.03 n.s.
.11
1.51 n.s.
viol/games
.01
.20
- .10
-1.27 n.s.
n.s.
R = .19 R2 = .04
________________________________________
R = .22 R2 = .03
37
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 5: Multiple regression summary table with gender, age, parental involvement, violent
games play, and antisocial attitudes as predictor variables and bullying behaviour as criterion
variable.
Whole Sample
Players
predictor
beta
t
sig
beta
t
sig
gender
-.07
-1.22 n.s.
-.04
-.53
n.s.
age
.10
2.01
.05
.12
1.94
.05
par/involve
.05
1.06
n.s.
.00
.04
n.s.
viol/games
-.00
-.04
n.s.
.06
.93
n.s.
antisocial
.52 10.48
.001
.53
8.36
.001
R = .55 R2 = .29
________________________________________
R = .56 R2 = ..30
38
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 6: Multiple regression summary table with gender, age, parental involvement, violent
games play, and civic attitudes as predictor variables and civic behaviour as criterion variable.
Whole Sample
Players
predictor
beta
t
sig
beta
t
sig
gender
.05
.70
n.s.
.03
.35
n.s.
age
.02
.35
n.s.
.05
.74
n.s.
par/involve
.03
.53
n.s.
.05
.70
n.s.
viol/games
.13
1.92
.056
.13
1.62
n.s.
.001
.12
1.64
n.s.
civic attitudes .19
3.29
R = .22 R2 = .05
________________________________________
R = .22 R2 = .03
39
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Table 7: Motivational Factors Predicting Video Game Play
Hours of play
violent game play
violent game play (players only)
beta
t
predictor
beta
t
sig
beta
t
gender
-.15
-2.54 .01
-.52
-10.40 .001
-.26
-3.07 .003
fun
-.06
-.81
n.s.
.09
1.46
n.s.
.22
2.23
.028
catharsis
.02
.23
n.s.
.10
1.68
n.s.
.20
2.12
.036
social
.20
2.58
.01
.00
0.09
n.s.
.09
0.84
n.s.
bored
.04
-.69
n.s.
.04
.4
n.s.
.06
0.76
n.s.
R = .25 R2 = .06
sig
R = .57 R2 = .32
sig
R = .58 R2 = .34
40
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
Footnotes
1) This policy statement quickly proved very controversial which numerous scholars
expressing concerns that the composition of the task force comprised of numerous
individuals who had taken conflict-of-interest public positions on video games prior to
being included on the task force, and that the resultant meta-analysis was
methodologically unsound (see Wofford, 2015). Concerned that the APA’s task force
nomination process was non-transparent and appeared to be “stacked” with
scholars who had taken anti-game positions publically in the past, over 230 scholars
wrote to the APA requesting that they retire all of their policy statements on media
violence (Consortium of Scholars, 2013). The APA did not acknowledge or respond
to this open letter in their task force statement, and the resultant task force
statement repeated many of the problems warned of by the Consortium of Scholars,
including the apparently selective exclusion of null studies from consideration,
overemphasis on bivariate correlations rather than controlled effect sizes, failure to
consider systematic methodological weaknesses in the literature and continued lack
of transparency (neither the task force meta-analysis’ effect size contributions nor
their notes on exclusion/inclusion of specific studies from the meta-analysis have
been made public.)
2) Perhaps as a ‘sign of the times’ the original paper and others similar appears to have been
interpreted originally in accordance with hypodermic needle models. However, during
BBC coverage of the issue, the original author emphatically stated that the paper could
not be used to link violent games to aggressive behavior. Discussion of the study and
similar studies by Dr. Simone Kuhn, noted that the pattern of results were consistent with
41
Running head: CHILDREN AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES
the brain disregarding an emotional reaction to fictional media, not desensitization to
violence.